


When We Stop Running

by smartlike



Category: The Maze Runner (2014)
Genre: Kissing, Light Angst, M/M, Memories, Post-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 09:17:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2807372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smartlike/pseuds/smartlike
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thomas and Minho are out of the Maze, but it's not clear what that means. A brief interlude not long after the escape.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When We Stop Running

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yabamena](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yabamena/gifts).



> Thanks to yabamena for the request - hope this fits your Yuletide wishes.
> 
> This will likely be non-canon compliant once the next movie comes out, but for now, who knows!

There's blood in his hair, dried and sharp and it doesn't move when he pushes his fingers against it. When he pulls his hand away, there's brown crust and some sort of sticky gel-like grossness that Minho assumes came from the Grievers. The blood isn't his- it's Winston's, probably Newt's, definitely Thomas's. Maybe Chuck's. 

Minho's throat tightens, a thick wave of bile pushing up. He can't see past his own hand, the inside of the truck they're in is dark with dirt over tinted windows, but he stretches out anyway, unfolding his other arm from against his chest, searching until he finds what he knows is Thomas's arm and rests his blood-streaked fingers against it. There's a shifting and then a thigh pressing closer to Minho's and he lets his throat relax, breathes, tries to still the sensation of movement in his feet that never really stops by tapping a light rhythm against the sharp bone of Thomas's wrist. 

He listens to the sounds of everyone else breathing and wonders if it's night or day. He does not wonder where they're going. 

*

It was apparently the fifth month when Minho came out of the Box, blinking in the sudden light, Alby pulling him up with seemingly no effort. His name came back three days later after he'd already helped Newt figure out how to tunnel water from their makeshift well into the garden. 

It's probably weird how little he really remembers of the early days in the Glade - with only a few years to remember, it seems like all of it should matter, all of it should be fresh and vivid, but there was a hypnotic routine to those first months that glazes most everything into a blur, only certain moments standing out in clear relief. 

Alby's rules, the first time he explained them, his voice strong with a conviction the boy who wasn't yet Minho couldn't imagine ever having. The way Winston shook his head and shrugged, eyes wide, when Minho asked if he was okay after the first pig was slaughtered. And not long after, Frypan's first pork stew, thick and salty and somehow warmer than anything else he'd made before. 

Gally sputtering as Newt laughed, arguing over why they didn't just call the Keepers 'bosses' because "for shuck's sake, we remember goddamn words."

They did remember words and Minho could see that Gally wasn't wrong, but Newt laughed again and spoke to Alby with his eyebrows, like they always did. 

Alby nodded, stared at Gally for a few heartbeats, then, "I remember, too. But they're not _bossing_ , they're _keeping_."

And they had kept them. Kept them working, kept them in line, kept them safe as best they could. Until they couldn't.

*

It's still dark and whatever road they're traveling is flat, just a constant light hum underneath the truck bed, with almost nothing to break the monotony. Minho has no idea how long it's been since they left the helicopter, the bizarrely cheerful gunman leaving them in this darkness when he closed them in and started the truck. He's left measuring time in the pattern of Thomas fidgeting next to him, how often he swallows, the slow and regular swipe of his palm up and down Minho's thigh. Hundreds of small fidgets have passed, the swallowing sounding more like choking each time and Minho is desperate for this version of time to stop, so he turns his torso to the left and pushes his own palm against Thomas's chest. Thomas's hand stills in the journey towards Minho's knee.

The first time Minho touched Thomas in the Maze, it was desperate, too, and it was angry. He feels now like there's no anger left, but the clenched muscles of Thomas's shoulders tell Minho that Thomas is thrumming with almost nothing else. Minho's grief is resigned and thick, he pictures it in his mind like a syrup spun from fog. But Thomas's is hot and metallic and Mihno can feel it under his fingers as he moves his hand up, lightly traces the skin where Thomas's shoulder joins his throat, trying to loosen something, trying, he guesses, to comfort something that can't be comforted. Still, Thomas does tip his head to the side, and it's maybe just from exhaustion, but he lets Minho's hand slide behind his neck where Minho presses his sore fingers into Thomas's muscles, rubbing and kneading a soft sigh out of Thomas.

A few fidgets later, a slight loosening of his shoulders, and Thomas's hand starts moving on Minho's leg again. Up and back, knee to crease, four times and then another sigh. "I'm a stupid shank."

Minho thinks, digs his index finger under a knot at the top of Thomas's spine. "I've been saying that." He remembers smiling, remembers shaking his head in surprise and admiration. 

Thomas squeezes Minho's knee and then lifts his hand, folds his leg up into what must be Indian-style, his knee replacing his hand pressing down onto Minho's thigh. He leans forward, giving Minho room to sweep his hand across Thomas's back. His shirt is slightly damp and Minho doesn't pause before sliding his hand under it and back up, massaging and carefully not thinking of the blood they're both wearing.

"I promised them we'd get out. Who did I think I was with that shit?" Thomas arches his back against Minho's hand. Minho doesn't say that Thomas did get them out, but he thinks it, holds the thought and the memory of Thomas charging into the corridor of the maze tight in his mind the same way Thomas's muscles are holding onto their anger. "I had five days in there and some bullshit memories - I had no right to make promises about getting out."

Minho holds his hand flat against Thomas's back and doesn't say that getting out is a promise Thomas kept.

*

In almost three years, Minho had seen a lot of idiots take a run at Gally in his little circle, but no one on their first night and no one with quite the blatant animosity that Thomas had for him. What Minho decides later is that it was in that moment that he knew Thomas would be something special. 

Actually, Minho probably only thought that the guy was pointlessly making the wrong enemies even if Gally had it coming. And actually, if he considered anything special about Thomas that night, it was maybe just in the way the firelight reflected off his cheekbones making his eyes shine as he shouted his name, but Minho had also had a little more of Gally's recipe than usual, so even that could be a trick of memory. But devotion to 'what actually happened' is a virtue or a luxury for people who have a memory longer than the lifespan of the mice that skittered around the edges of the barn in the Glade, so for Minho later, holding his blade against Gally's arm, ready to follow Thomas into the Maze, the fire became the moment that he knew something like that would happen.

The morning after the fire, Newt ate breakfast with the Runners, earlier than everyone else, sliding his last piece of bacon onto Minho's plate. Thomas was leaning against a tree a few yards away, eyes half closed as Chuck bobbled around next to him. Newt nodded as he pushed his plate away. "On about being a Runner already, that one."

Minho licked his lower lip, salt from the meat clinging to his tongue, and stared across at Thomas. He looked like he could run. He was still appraising when Thomas opened his eyes and looked directly at Minho. He squinted a little, but didn't blink. Just stared until Minho shook himself and stood. 

"We'll see," he said to Newt, pointing out to the Maze to signal his Runners it was time to go. He didn't look back to see whether Thomas had looked away because he knew he hadn't.

*

"You almost died under that Griever." Thomas's leg is flat again and Minho's hand has come to rest in the small of his back. Minho hums in acknowledgment. He remembers. "You almost didn't get out."

"I did, though." Minho wants to shrug, but doesn't, feels like it would be disrespectful. Other people didn't.

"But." There's a small breeze across Minho's cheek and then Thomas is there, leaning in. "I barely know you." Two harsh breaths against Minho's lips. "I barely knew him."

Thomas's voice is quiet; they're whispering. Minho can't imagine anyone's trying to listen. Everyone else is sleeping or pretending to sleep so they can think their own thoughts. But even so, Minho lowers his voice even more, barely audible. 

"When the longest you've known anyone is two years and seven months, you learn real fast how easy it is for someone to matter." Three weeks in the Glade, Minho would have died to keep anyone else there safe. Or killed, even if he probably didn't realize it then. 

Minho brings his hand back up to Thomas's neck. "You knew him." Minho waits three fidgets, Thomas's hand back on Minho's thigh, before he says "You know me," but Thomas is swallowing the words into his mouth.

This touch is desperate, too, and maybe a little angry. Thomas arranges himself against Minho, wrapping their free hands together. There are scrapes on the inside of Minho's fingers from the wooden staff he carried through the Maze and Thomas rubs the pad of his thumb too roughly against them as if he can erase them. Minho blinks away the memory of the Griever hovering over him and he pushes up against Thomas. 

They're out- _Thomas got them out_ \- and now Minho's measuring time in the small gasping pauses Thomas takes between kisses to breathe against Minho's lips. The road continues to hum along below them, but for now, their feet are still.


End file.
